Flight Paths

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

I recently taught a Bible class that in turn taught me something very important.    
My view of the David and Bathsheba story, the class in question, is that it is a cautionary tale against hubris and that it shows that even forgiven, sins can have many earthly consequences. I always try to keep in mind that these are real people with real motivations and emotions. People who live in a different culture than mine, with a different viewpoint that sometimes makes it hard for me to understand, but people. Thinking along those lines about David, I find it hard to believe this was an isolated incident where his passions got out of control. If seeing a beautiful, naked young woman aroused him, then he had many--many!!--legitimate ways to deal with that. His wives and concubines that we know of number in the high teens. He was also cold blooded enough about the whole incident to make sure that Bathsheba was clean according to the law. It seems that if she wasn't clean, David would have waited for her. So this wasn't one moment of passion, but the culmination of years of legitimately having his way.

He was king, and as such was accorded certain privileges. He wanted security for his people, the earthly nation of God, and he went out and took it at the edge of the sword. He wanted a new capital city, and took it.  I wonder if he wasn't arrogant about being David, King of the Hebrews, scourge of the land of Canaan. Then he saw a woman he wanted, and took her, despite the fact that she was the wife of another. So, the story can be taken as a warning against hubris.

Then chapter 12 (2 Samuel) lists the consequences of David's acts, records David's repentance, and declares God's forgiveness of David's sins. Yet though forgiven, David had to face the multiple consequences the rest of his life. That teaches us that our sins, too, can have major, long lasting consequences, regardless of God's forgiveness. This gives us extra incentive to remain pure before God.  None of us want to face anything like the last 20 years of David's life. So that was my view of the point of the David and Bathsheba story.

Then a woman I respect said she agreed with most of what I thought, especially about the consequences of sin, but denied that it was the major point of the story. She sees the major point as being the wonderful grace of God and his extraordinary forgiveness. To her it is a story showing that, no matter how far one falls from God, he will accept you back if you show "a broken and contrite heart." (Psalm 51). David made some major mistakes, and was far from God at the end of chapter 11, but with the strong rebuke of Nathan he came to himself and returned to Jehovah, acknowledging his sin and repenting. God forgave him, he remained king, and spent most of the rest of his life preparing for the temple and the national worship of Jehovah. This paints the picture of God's redeeming grace. 

My father made the point in my class that you can see from David's writing in the 51st Psalm the surprising depth of his spiritual understanding. Almost every sin had a specific sacrifice that had to be performed for the forgiveness of that sin under the old Law, but adultery was punished by death. So was murder. There was no sacrifice for the forgiveness of these sins. God had forgiven David. So there had to be more to forgiveness than just animal sacrifices. This incident forced David to understand something spiritually that many of us still fail at today. There is nothing we can do to win forgiveness. It is the gift of God. What he requires is the "broken and contrite heart." I don't know that this is the major point of this incident to Dad, but it is something he saw that I didn't. Sometimes our biggest failures cause us to grow in the biggest ways.

It is interesting to me that three people looked at the same incident recorded in scripture and learned three different lessons from it. All of the lessons are valid and supported by the scriptures. We each came at the same material from different starting points of personal experience, personal Bible knowledge and different points of spiritual growth. While we may good-naturedly argue about which is the "main" point, I doubt that there would be much disagreement between us that all of these points are valid and can help others to grow. 

Wow, someone can read the same passage I did and come to a different conclusion than I did and it not be wrong? I wonder what other issues of greater import this might be true of?  Maybe I shouldn't be so quick to condemn my brethren.  Maybe I should try to view them through love instead of the narrow lens of immediate judgment.

Lucas Ward

            No, that title is not a typo.  Well, it is actually—a typo on purpose.  That is what happens when you try to type “One Key Off” with your hands exactly one key off from the correct starting position.  Even when you make the right moves with the correct hands you get something that makes no sense, that isn’t even pronounceable.

             How many times do we do that with the Bible?  We start studying in the middle of things, with the most difficult things, with things that do not even apply to our lives.  What do we get?  A big mess. 

            If one fundamental fact is wrong, you create a long line of false doctrine.  Calvinism, anyone?

            If one step in logic is left out, you find yourself believing something so ridiculous, you may eventually lose your faith altogether when you come to your senses, or worse, actually come to believe it so emphatically that you take others down the drain with you.  How else do some of these strange cults get their start?

            If you get bogged down in things far removed from what you really need to get through life, how will you ever grow?

            Isn’t it odd that simply being one key away can make such a huge difference?  Be careful where you put your time studying the scriptures.  Match one passage with another.  Anytime your interpretation of something does not jive with another scripture, my guess is that you are at least one key off, maybe more. 

            Start with the simple, start with what you need to believe to be in Christ.  Then move to what you need to live your life every day.  Worry about Revelation and Zechariah a little further down the road.  Find someone you can trust to help you.  Elders come to mind, and good Bible class teachers.  But whatever you do, be careful where you put your faith.  One step away from the truth is not a good place to be.

Hold the pattern of sound words which you heard from me, in faith and love which is in Jesus Christ.  2 Tim 1;13.   

Dene Ward

This is Part 8 of the Monday series, "Whoso Findeth a Wife."

            Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. 1 Peter 3:7.

            The concept of “vessel” as figurative of bodies, lives, even nations, has been well established since Old Testament times (1 Sam 21:4,5; Psalm 11:12; Isa 65:4; Jer 18).  The figure is continued in the New Testament in passages such as Acts 9:15; 2 Cor 4:7; Rom 9:19ff; 2 Tim 2:20,21, as well as the passage above.  In both the Hebrew and Greek the word literally means “utensil” or “instrument.”  In the Peter passage the word “woman” is actually mistranslated as a noun when it should be an adjective: …giving honor unto the womanly vessel…” as opposed to the manly.  In other words, the man is an instrument too, and both man and woman are instruments of God, not one of the other, joint-heirs of the grace of life.

            I read an article once using the metaphor of crystal goblets and Mason jars.  Which is the weaker (more fragile) vessel?  Yet which one is treated with the most honor (care, protection)?  In many societies the men have used their greater strength to take advantage of the women, using them as workhorses, and ignoring their needs.  When I was younger I heard a man say, “In my day, women used to have babies and go out and work in the field the next day.”  My husband replied, “And a lot more of them died young too.”  It has only been in modern civilization that the average lifespan of women has surpassed that of men. A good many of the laws that seem slanted against women in the Old Testament, were actually given for their protection.  The scriptures teach that men are not to take advantage of women just because of their greater physical strength but to give them the honor and care of a fragile, crystal goblet.

           Some have a problem with the word “weaker.”  The word does not mean “weak.”  It is a word of comparison.  It means “less strong,” and it certainly does not apply to intellect or emotion.  As we recently discovered, the woman of Proverbs 31 possesses the strength to handle life’s problems instead of being another emotional burden on her husband.  A man wants a woman who can keep her head in a crisis, bear disappointment with a smile, and take heartbreak without a complete collapse.  And yes, it is right for him to want a woman who can and will work alongside him without complaining.

            I have dug ditches in a monsoon next to my husband to keep our house from washing away.  But he sent me in after the worst was done, to rest and dry off while he “just finished up,” another hour’s work.  There are times when things must be done and one has to muster up as much physical strength as possible, but the strongest man is still stronger than the strongest woman.  Until all athletic contests are no longer gender specific and the women are regularly winning, there is no denying that men are physically stronger.

            The media consistently presents the man of the family as a buffoon, a bumbling idiot who must always be saved from himself by his far more intelligent, cultured, sensible wife.  Do you think I haven’t heard Christian women talk about their men in exactly the same way?

            God designed the man to be the provider and protector, 1 Tim 5:8; Gen 3:17-19, even to giving his life for his wife if necessary, Eph 5:25.  Let him use what God put in him!  Nowadays we are so civilized that there is seldom any substantive need for real protection—no wild animals, no angry natives, no longer any dramatic way to prove himself.  Then, to make it worse, we steal our husbands’ self-esteem by complaining about the standard of living he has provided, laughing at his attempts to buy us gifts, and insulting his careful planning for our financial security.  If you don’t think you are being treated with the honor you deserve, maybe it’s because you have not let him honor you in the only ways he knows how, the ways God programmed into him.

            It is up to you to let your husband be the head of the house.  Eph 5:22 never tells the husband to put his wife into subjection.  In the same way, he cannot “nourish and cherish” you (literally “feed and warm”) if you do not let him (Eph 5:29).  God used marriage as a pattern for his relationship with His people.  He had a problem when his “wife” went to someone besides Him for her needs and her protection, and when she insisted that she could take care of herself without Him, Hos 2:5-13.  What makes us think a man will feel any differently when we act like we don’t need him?

But if any provide not for his own, and specially his own household, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever. 1 Timothy 5:8.

Dene Ward

            Sooner or later it will rain, especially when you choose a season and place so popular you must reserve your spot months in advance and, thus, will not know the forecast.  So at least one day of every camping trip we sit inside the screen we set up over our picnic table waiting it out. 

            On our latest trip we had the highest site in the campground, a thirty degree incline up to a spot carved out of the mountainside, fifty feet higher than the nearest site, overlooking the campers to the south and the small town in the valley east of us.  We had set up the day before and watched the clouds roll in that night, obliterating the bright three-quarter moon, wrapping around us like a shroud.

            The rain began in the night, an intermittent drizzle that found its way through the dense forest canopy in a steady barrage of loud heavy plops on the taut nylon of the tent roof, keeping me awake half the night.  The next day we spent back in the screen in the middle of a mountain top cloud, its mist swirling around us and dripping off the saturated limbs and leaves even between the sporadic showers.  Inside and under cover, the benches we sat on grew cold and dank, seeping into the denim on our legs.  The sweatshirts on our backs felt damp and our shoulders chilled in the air.  The pages in the books we read thickened and curled at the corners in the cool humidity.  The top of the green propane stove at the end of the table beaded with moisture.

            By nightfall it was a pleasure to crawl into a warm dry sleeping bag, to lay our backs on a firm air mattress instead of leaning against the edge of a hard wooden table, facing outward to a smoky campfire we could hardly feel through the screen, that sputtered and sizzled from raindrops and wet wood.  The next morning dawned clear with a blue that can only mean “cold,” and air so crisp it sucked the damp out of everything, including our hands and lips.

            For a few days everything was perfect—hikes in pristine forests, clear views of twinkling lights in the valley below, food cooked over a wood fire, and a sky full of stars over us as we read at night, the red, orange, blue and purple flames of a crackling campfire toasting our toes and legs. 

            But as perfect as it was, do you think I didn’t want to go home eventually?  That I wanted to live out of boxes forever?  That there wouldn’t come another day, or even week of rain, or maybe a real storm to blow our tent completely off the mountain?  I was happy to go back home, to have electric lights and windows that would shut against the rain and cold, a bathroom just a few feet away instead of a quarter mile, a shower I didn’t have to share with strangers, and a washer and dryer I didn’t have to feed quarters into.  I enjoy my camping vacations, but I wouldn’t if I had to live that way forever.  In fact, would you even enjoy living in a hotel forever?

            The scriptures call our lives here a sojourn, a short stay away from our real home.  Why do we act like this is all that really matters, like we want to stay here forever, and why are we so surprised when it rains on us occasionally?  This isn’t Heaven after all, and faith doesn’t expect Heaven now.

            “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” Jesus said.  Too many of us have our treasures heaped up on a mountaintop campsite or a beachfront condo, and lose our faith when the clouds roll in to spoil our vacation.  If you think this life and this world are all God had in mind for you, you have set your sights far too low.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. Hebrews 11:13-16.

Dene Ward

            I was born and raised a city girl.  We never had a mouse in our house.  Cartoons like “Tom and Jerry” and “Pixie and Dixie” seemed like fairy tales to me.  Then we moved to a farming community in Illinois.  Our house sat on the last street on the edge of the small town, right next to a cornfield.  One morning in September I got up to find that our dog had had a playmate all night long—one who was much the worse for wear, and who, unfortunately, had brought several friends in with him. 

            One of the farm wives in the church told us to stuff steel wool beside every pipe coming up through the floor--the kitchen sink, bathroom lavatory, hot water heater, washer, etc.  Pipes are the main highway for mice entering a home, and steel wool is the only flexible thing they cannot chew through.  I bought the small town out of steel wool and frantically stuffed it all down those offending holes.  Our mouse problem suddenly improved.  Once in awhile in the years that followed we had an interloper, but he was usually a lone pioneer in what we tried to make a hostile frontier.

            How much sense would it have made, though, for me to say, “Steel wool won’t take care of them all, so why bother?”  About as much sense as it would to say, “A criminal can always find a way into your home if he wants to, so why bother locking the door?”  There are some occasions where the word “stupid” legitimately applies.

            So why do I hear my brethren constantly harping on the inevitability of sin?  “We will all sin sooner or later no matter how hard we try.”  When I ask why, I hear, Let him who stands take he lest he fall, (1 Cor 10:12).  Translation:  the minute you start thinking you can overcome, you have become proud and before you know it, you will be down the tubes!  Surely there is a difference in recognizing, “With the help of my Savior, I can overcome,” and spouting, “I’m such a strong Christian I’d never do anything like that!”  Whatever happened to I can do all things through him who strengthens me?  Sometimes it sounds like we think that Divine help is at best, anemic, and at worst, impotent.  Or is it just that we don’t believe what we say?

.           Why can’t I use the fact that I overcame one temptation as an encouragement to overcome some more?  Are we denying that God expects us to grow and get stronger every day?  None of us would allow our children to play for a team whose coach told them they could never win, that even if they managed a win, they would lose sooner or later.  Yet we are so afraid of sounding like we believe in that Calvinistic notion of “once saved always saved,” that we openly discourage one another and wear it as a mark of soundness. 

            Paul was ever mindful of his status as a sinner, “the chiefest” in fact.  But he was not afraid to tell the Corinthians about his successes.  “I set an example for you by foregoing my rights for the sake of my brother’s soul.  Now do what I did,” (the context of 1 Corinthians chapters 8-10, concluding with 11:1).  He did not mean it as a boast, but someone surely could have taken it that way.  And when his life was over he said, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.  Henceforth there is a crown of righteousness waiting for me, 2 Tim 4:7,8.  Was he bragging?  Of course not.  It was a declaration of hope for a job well done.  Let’s not stand on the sidelines just waiting to jump on a brother and accuse him of a lack of humility when he sees his own progress and is encouraged by it, daring to say, “With the Lord’s help, I can win.”

            Instead, let’s stand with the apostles and their view of things. 

            For the death that he died he died unto sin once, but the life that he lives, he lives unto God.  Even so, reckon also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.  Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies that you should obey the lusts thereof, neither present your members as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves unto God as alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God, Rom 6:11-13.

            There has no temptation taken you but such as man can bear, but God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation make also the way of escape that you may be able to endure it, 1 Cor 10:13.

            Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and taking up the shield of faith with which you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one, Eph 6:14-16. 

            The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, 2 Pet 2:9.

            My little children, these things I write unto you that you may not sin, and if we sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, 1 John 2:1.

            Get out the steel wool.  Plug the holes where you can.  Don’t let the fact that a sin here and there may find its way into your life cause you to roll out the red carpet for every temptation that comes along.  Take advantage of the encouragement God meant you to have and don’t give up the battle before you even start fighting.

Dene Ward

           I apologize for that, but I just don’t know what else to call it.  Chloe has a cold.  I never knew a dog could get a cold.  It has been typical of a human cold.  She felt miserable for two or three days, and then she started coming out of it, once again running to greet us when we step outdoors, and racing the couple hundred yards to the gate to meet us when we come home.  And, just like a human cold, the runny nose lingers on.  She never coughed or that would have lingered too, just as Keith’s has for over three months now.

            But this nose thing is almost intolerable.  Let me put it like this:  when a dog blows its nose, you had better stand way back.

            She comes out every morning trying to clean out her pipes, clearing her throat and spitting, blowing her nose and sneezing--just like her master, except he knows to use a handkerchief.  Chloe on the other hand looks just plain disgusting.

            I am sure you remember how it was when your toddler had a cold and you couldn’t follow him around all day wiping his nose.  You really did have diapers to wash, and meals to fix, and floors to mop, and on and on, a never ending list.   Suddenly he would come running to share with you a tot-sized marvel, and you would look up and, even if you didn’t say it, you would think, “Gross!” and grab a Kleenex to wipe up what was, um, hanging.  Well, with a dog, multiply that several times--and add a few inches.

            And just like a child, Chloe most certainly does not appreciate it when you wipe her nose.  She has learned to recognize the restroom variety brown paper towels that hang on the carport, and runs when she sees one in Keith’s hand.  As much as I hate to do it to her, when she flees to me for help, I grab her collar and hold her still so he can indeed, clean up that repulsive little schnozzle.  I found out the hard way what happens if you don’t.  Not only will she sneeze on you, but she will then wipe that nose all by herself--on your hem, or your shirtsleeve, or your jeans, or whatever else she can reach, mixed in with whatever dust or dirt she has lain in.  It is repulsive and the only way it comes off is in the washing machine.

            Are you thoroughly grossed out now?  What do you think when you see a friend with a bad case of sin?  Do you act like it isn’t there?  Are you afraid of losing him to correction?  Do you sympathize with him if anyone does care enough to try to help, joining in your friend’s criticism of their methods, their words, even their motivation—as if you could read minds?  Do you just go along like nothing has happened, like it won’t make any difference to them or you or anyone else?

            Sin is disgusting, especially in someone who claims to live a life of purity.  It will keep him from eternal life just as surely as a nose full of snot will keep a child from breathing well.  It will drip all over him in one disgusting glob and affect the lives of others who see him.  And if you stay too close, it will get on you too.  How can it not?

            Think about that special friend right now.  Everyone has one—someone you love who has lost his way.  Are you going to allow your friend to continue in this revolting situation, or do you love him enough to grab a paper towel and wipe his nose?

But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh, Jude 1:20-23.

Dene Ward

           My neighbor, who has aggravated me with his inconsiderate behavior since he moved in, once again seems to go out of his way to provoke me.  So what do I do?  I find some way to return the gesture.

            This past Sunday morning in Bible class we had discussed Roman 12, including verses 18-20:  as much as in you lies, be at peace with all men. Avenge not yourselves for…vengeance is mine, says the Lord… 

            I nodded in agreement as the teacher explained the behavior a Christian should exhibit, and eventually became bored and impatient.  We all know this.  Why is he spending so much time on it?

            Now it is Monday, or Wednesday, or some other weekday, and I have left my religious cubbyhole behind.  This is real life, we are dealing with, not some ideal that always works out fine.  So, despite the fact that I know the “right” answers, I behave the “wrong” way.  This is different, I rationalize.

            Oh, really?  The only difference is that it is me, and I give myself a free pass whenever possible.  Besides, the vengeance thing is about serious matters, not some minor annoyance, so this does not count.  I am not a vigilante, after all. 

            So if it is so minor, why do I allow myself to be upset by it?  Well, because they did it to me.

            Reading the Word of God is not difficult.  Understanding it is sometimes more difficult.  But applying it to my life is the most difficult thing of all.  I make excuses for myself, (“It’s been a rough day”); I flatter myself with good intentions, (“I just want him to learn how it feels”); I try to make my actions seem normal and forgivable, (“It was just an accident, I meant no harm”), all while denying the other person any benefit of a doubt at all. 

            What I have really done is lower myself to his level.  What was that my brain just screamed out at him?  Jerk, idiot, lowlife? 

            I think I hear it echoing back to me.

Be not a witness against your neighbor without cause; and deceive not with your lips.  Say not, I will do so to him as he has done to me; say not I will recompense evil; wait for Jehovah and he will save you, All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes, but Jehovah weighs the spirit.  Prov 24:28,29; 20:22; 16:2. 

Dene Ward

This is  Part 7 of the Monday series "Whoso Findeth a Wife."

            In Ezekiel 24:16, Jehovah refers to Ezekiel’s wife as “the desire of your eyes.”  Too many wives miss the significance of that description.  We think that once we have caught ourselves a man, we don’t have to worry about our appearance.  If this verse means anything, it means that Ezekiel loved to look at his wife, that her appearance pleased him.  That doesn’t just happen.  In some manner, she paid enough attention to herself to stay attractive to him.

            Now, that verse also says a lot about Ezekiel.  She was the desire of his eyes, no one else.  She was the one he wanted to look at, not every other woman who might display herself in an inappropriate way.  He wasn’t in the market for another woman.  Notice also, Ezekiel was thirty when the book began, and no more than 36 when it ended.  He was not an older man with a decreased libido.  To even a young Ezekiel there was one woman and one woman only.

            But that still doesn’t take away from the idea that a godly woman is careful about her appearance.  I am not going to tell you that you have to stay a size 4—if you ever were to begin with.  Carrying his children and preparing his meals, plus the added responsibility of hospitality that in the Scriptures always involved sharing a meal, precludes any notion of a girl-like figure lasting through fifty years of marriage.  I am, however, supposed to be a living sacrifice, Rom 12:1.  That means I take care of my health as surely as it meant keeping those animal sacrifices healthy and unblemished.  It means I exercise self-control in all things, Gal 5:23; 2 Pet 1:6.  I heard one woman say, “To lose weight I have to be hungry, and I just won’t do that.”  With that attitude, Jesus would have turned the stones into a four course meal. 

            Yet even the most conscientious of women put it on.  Unless you are genetically predisposed to thinness, there comes a time when either your metabolism has slowed too much with age or you are under activity restrictions for medical reasons which make it more difficult to exercise it off.  Discouragement is constant.  Men can leave the butter off their bread and lose ten pounds in a month.  You can leave out both the butter and the bread, and maybe you will lose half a pound that month, but you will gain it and four more back the next weekend when you have company or cook for a church potluck.  You simply accept that your waistline will thicken, and a good man will understand.  But a Christian always exercises moderation and self-control, and always cares for her Temple, 1 Cor 6:19,20, even a slightly larger one.

            But if your figure is the only thing that makes you the desire of your husband’s eyes, you obviously picked the wrong man.  Watching your weight is only a small part of a woman’s appearance and, except in cases endangering health, probably the most superficial.  A lot can be said for just staying presentable.  Are you clean and sweet-smelling?  Is your hair clean and combed?  Are your clothes clean, pressed, and mended?  It is just as impossible to live with a woman and never see her in curlers and cold cream as it is to live with a man and never see him sweaty and unshaven, but is she still shuffling around in those dingy scuffs and ratty terrycloth robe at noon?  Does she save her nice clothes, makeup, and hairdos for others, and always wear holey jeans or frumpy house dresses and leave her hair scraggly and unkempt for him, even when it isn’t window-washing, bean-picking, or floor-scrubbing day?

            The worthy woman made “for herself carpets of tapestry, her clothing is fine linen and purple” Prov 31:22.  We certainly do not advocate living beyond one’s means, but the wife should make some effort to look nice—for him.  It costs more time and money than most of us have to look glamorous, but just a little time and effort would give some husbands a welcome change, plenty enough for him to call her “the desire of my eyes.”

            The most important way for women to stay beautiful is to “adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefastness and sobriety, not with braided hair and gold or pearls, but (which becomes women professing godliness) with good works” 1 Tim 2:9,10.  Many a plain woman has become beautiful to me as I came to know her because of her character shining through, but no amount of makeup has hidden for long the ugliness of others. 

            One cannot make her features more regular or remove the flaws from her skin, but she can clean up her soul and with God’s help, keep it white as snow.  She can keep from becoming hard and bitter.  She can keep her voice from screeching and whining.  She can keep her face from scowling and sneering.

            A man has no business expecting his fifty-year old wife to look twenty-five, but he has every reason to expect her character to grow younger until she becomes “as a little child” Mark 10:15.  As the king advised in Proverbs 31:10: Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears Jehovah, she shall be praised.


Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.1 Peter 3:4.

Dene Ward

           On December 9, 1973 Marshall Efron’s Illustrated Simplified Painless Sunday School began on CBS.  Seeing that little tidbit of information brought back words I hadn’t thought of in years.  “That’s just asking too much.”

            You’d think that I could remember who said that to us one evening while we sat studying the Bible in his home.  You’d think I could remember where he drew the line that kept him from serving the Lord.  It isn’t often you find someone that honest.  Most people offer excuses instead.  They understand that they are telling God they are not willing to sacrifice for him.  In fact, they will usually make a list of everything they have done before adding, “But that’s just asking too much.”  What they fail to see is that if they are willing to give it up, it isn’t a sacrifice.  The sacrifice comes when you don’t want to give it up; the sacrifice comes when it hurts. Serving God is not supposed to be “painless.” 

            Too many of us believe that just because we got up, dressed up, and drove to another location instead of sitting there watching some sort of “Painless Sunday School” on television that we are sacrificing for the Lord.  We will sit in the meetinghouse on Sunday morning.  We will even sit for the full two or three hours, whatever our group has chosen.  Just exactly what have we given up?  Sleep?  Another day of fishing?  A little more yard work?  Doesn’t sound like much of a sacrifice.

            Many will alter their lifestyles a bit.  What have they given up?  Hangovers?  Gambling debts?  STDs?  If you aren’t stupid, that’s another easy sacrifice to make.  It only becomes difficult when the dependency has developed.

            What we steadfastly refuse to give up is ourselves. 

            Can we admit wrong?  Can we yield to others?  Can we toe the line, even when the thing in question affects us individually?  It’s much easier for the non-music lover to give up instrumental music in the worship.  Trust me.  I know.  It’s much easier to bide by the Lord’s words concerning marriage when you have a solid relationship, and when your children have also chosen well.  It’s much easier to serve when you actually like the people you are serving.  Yet ease is the very thing that makes it not much of a sacrifice.  The true sacrifice comes when, instead of twisting scriptures to suit ourselves and frantically searching for loopholes, we do what hurts.

            The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise, Psalm 51:17.  Pain is what makes a sacrifice sincere.  Humble repentance that involves giving up selfish desires and yielding to others who do not deserve it are the most difficult sacrifices to give, and therefore, the ones that God wants most to see in us.  Until we manage that, anything else we do in service to God is a sham, no matter how beautifully we sing, how generously we donate, or how knowledgeably we teach.

            When Jeroboam became king of the northern 10 tribes of Israel, in spite of God’s promise to him of a lasting dynasty if he only obeyed, he looked at those fickle people and said, “I know exactly how to keep them here.”  He made it easy to serve God.

            And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now will the kingdom return to the house of David: if this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of Jehovah at Jerusalem, then will the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah. Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt. 1 Kings 12:26-28.

            “It’s asking too much,” he told them.  “Let me make it easy for you.”  And just like that, the people in the north left the God who had delivered them from slavery, defeated their enemies, and provided all their needs. 

            What is it that Jeroboam would offer you?

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ, 
Philippians 3:7-8.

Dene Ward

Now that we have a carport for the first time in 27 years, I find myself wondering if all we did was get something else to keep clean.  I know I sweep it every morning I am home and the weather is cooperative.  If I miss a day, it’s really a mess.  A little while ago, after a couple of rainy days, I had an especially large job ahead of me.  In places on the edges the dust was caked an inch thick.

            I thought I would never finish.  I swept several times in each patch and still the dust flew.  Finally I looked at Chloe and muttered, “There is enough dust here for God to make a whole person.”  As my mind is apt to wander into strange places, it was only a second or two before I wondered if I was sweeping some Native American from four or five hundred years ago, or perhaps some Spanish conquistador who never made it home.

            Now that’s a humbling thought, isn’t it?  Some day several hundred years from now, someone may be sweeping me off their carport, or whatever they have by then.

            When it comes right down to it that is all these bodies are.  As God told Adam, For dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return, Gen 3:19.  Too many times we think we are more than that.  But answer this:  how many billions (or trillions?) have ever lived in all of time, and how many of those do you find in your child’s history book?  I imagine the percentage would be point zero, zero, zero, zero something, or even less.  How can I ever think that I am so important to the world that I would wind up in that tiny group?  I will be surprised if anyone remembers me even twenty years after I am gone, much less several hundred.

            Thinking too well of myself will do nothing but cause serious trouble.  How many relationships are ruined by self-centeredness?  How many tyrants came out of an ego that could not be satisfied?  How often has the Lord’s body suffered schisms because someone thought he was more important than any of his brethren?

            If you think about it, it is ironic that the only person who was ever as humble as he should have been is the one who changed history forever.  While we claim to follow Him, we evidently don’t believe His way is the best.  Humility seems to be the most difficult thing we have to learn, and the place we most often fail.

            So go sweep your carport today.  It might be that you will gain a little perspective.

For if a man thinks himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself, Gal 6:3.  

The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit to God who gave it, Eccl 12:7

Dene Ward